


Stringbean

by tintagel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon What Canon, F/M, M/M, body image is complicated, derek needs a mother figure, stiles is on a health kick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 03:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11095722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tintagel/pseuds/tintagel
Summary: Never compare your best bro's body to a stringbean. Working out may result.The summer when he's back from college, Stiles takes up running, and Derek's house becomes his halfway point.





	Stringbean

**Author's Note:**

> This is lighthearted, but if you're sensitive to issues around body image, exercise and food, this may not be the fic for you.
> 
> Written because I was washing my hair in the bath, misremembered the name 'Greenberg' as 'green bean', and was bitten by an idea.

It had begun with green beans, as so many things in life did.

From what Derek understands—through frantic texts one Friday night before Scott and Stiles’ college finals—Scott had stuck his foot in his mouth, where it fitted almost perfectly, and compared Stiles’ physique to a limp stringbean in the dismal dining hall. Stiles had taken it…not well.

“Maybe it was just the stress of all the exams,” Derek says absently one night on the phone to Scott, stirring frozen soup that wants, stubbornly, to stay lump-shaped in the pan. “Didn’t he take four finals in one day?”

“Yeah.” Scott still sounds glum over the line. “But this was, like, two weeks ago. And he’s still holding a grudge.”

“Maybe something horrible should happen. That always seems to cement your bromance.” The soup is now burning, despite still being frozen. That shouldn’t be possible. Derek decides to make the best of a bad job and takes out a loaf of bread. Maybe he should slice the soup and make an unconventional sandwich.

Derek realises Scott’s been quiet on the phone. “You still there?”

“We’re coming back to Beacon Hills this summer.” Goddamnit, the werewolf sounds like a hurt puppy. “I’m sure we’ll all be in plenty of danger then.”

“Yeah. There’s that.” Derek says, trying to inject levity into the proceedings. “Look, Stiles will come around. He always does, right?”

“Yeah.” Deep sigh on Scott’s end.

Save him from lovestruck and down werewolves. “Lemme guess. You miss your mom, and Allison, and you want to get your last few exams over with—“

“I’ve got Comparative Pottery tomorrow,” Scott agrees, voice still glum.

“…well, I’m sure you’ll—“

“Haha, you fell for that? Dude, it’s Spanish tomorrow.” Scott sounds immeasurably more chipper, and Derek smile-scowls in spite of himself. “But you think that Stiles will come round?”

“I know he will. Pull that again, McCall, and I’ll never answer a call again.”

“You will if you want my mom to feed you,” Scott chirrups, and hangs up. Derek doesn’t exactly regret going to Melissa’s that first time for Friday night dinner, but he does wish that Scott’s mom wouldn’t tell Scott about them. It’s just nice, you know? He doesn’t have a great track record with cooking, as the sliced soup sandwich proves, but he doesn’t go only for the food.

He wouldn’t mind stringbeans.

*

It’s a week later. Scott has been back two days and the Argents are backing off a little. Allison’s okay. They know Scott’s a werewolf. They know Derek’s the alpha. Nobody’s killing anyone. It’s fine.

He’s just extra watchful when he makes his coffee that morning. There’s movement among the trees, sure, but it mostly seems to be birds, maybe deer. A sweaty, out-of-breath guy stumbling towards the house. Wait, what?

Derek is out of his door in maybe two seconds, spotting the Argent plant loaded with wolfsbane is actually just Stiles, panting and clad in something close to leggings.

“Stiles?” Derek says in disbelief, and watches as Stiles crumples melodramatically on his porch.

There’s an awkward moment where Derek looks down at the stringbean, and the stringbean looks up, and neither of them move.

“Derek. Piece of advice.” The breathlessness isn’t feigned, and Stiles springs up a little slower than his usual frenetic pace. “Never become a nurse. You’d be terrible if I was dying.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Gonna offer me some water?”

“No,” Derek says blandly, though he’s not sure if even he can fuck up water. “Why were you running up here?”

Now Stiles really does grimace. “I didn’t want anyone seeing me here.”

Anyone. Probably Lydia. That flame never really burnt out, Derek is keenly aware. “Smart. Head to the alpha werewolf’s place so if you’re found dead on the ground people assume it’s the psycho who lives on the edge of town.”

“Rather than my weak lettuce physique,” Stiles says, scrubbing his face, and maybe it’s Derek’s imagination but he looks genuinely annoyed. Fuck it. He needs to know Derek’s on his side.

“That’s an upgrade from stringbean,” Derek tells him, and watches as Stiles’ entire body tightens, like he’s suddenly been yanked upwards but his feet haven’t left the ground. “So,” he continues as if he hadn’t noticed his body language stiffen, “I’m guessing this is part of a fitness regime. Jogging’s a good start. And if you want to keep doing it by my place, I’ll get some—I don’t know—vitamin water or energy gel or whatever.”

Stiles is now openly staring.

“What?” Derek shrugs, feeling antsy and shy. “I want the pack to be at their peak fitness in case of trouble.”

“About that,” Stiles says, stretching. “Melissa says try not to cause it on a Friday.”

Derek can’t say anything back to him, because that would be insulting to Melissa and her spaghetti and meatballs is some of the best he’s ever tasted. Irritatingly, Stiles takes his slightly embarrassed look to be proof he can control when trouble arises. He laughs as he jogs away.

*

Stiles does mean to lift weights. He doesn’t want to look like a bodybuilder, but if he aims for that he’ll end up half-assing his way into a Marvel superhero look. He knows his brain, he knows how to trick it.

He cannot trick his muscles. He lifts a weight too enthusiastically and his entire body plummets to the ground, arm-first. Thankfully, it’s early on a Sunday morning at the gym so nobody saw, and he used his dad’s membership card to get in, so at least he didn’t waste any money.

Sure, he might have broken his arm. But at least it’s an excuse to get out of more exercise! Now he can just focus on running, get less beany before school starts again in the fall. Scott’s apologised so many times, and Stiles doesn’t hold anything against his bro, but it wouldn’t have hit him nearly as hard if he hadn’t already been thinking about his body. His literal shape in the world.

There was this boy.

Stiles really doesn’t like thinking about the boy. He was at college; it was a whole…thing. On his end. Said boy probably has no idea he even exists, and that’s completely fine and cool. Because he was a swimmer, and Stiles is emphatically not, and it wasn’t just the body thing, it was an energy thing and a health thing and a wet-hair thing…

He can become his own self at college, and maybe he’s okay with being the kind of Stiles who runs.

So running becomes his thing. He grows to like it, to look forward to a few moments of being alone and unknotting his thoughts as he pushes himself up dirt tracks to reach the halfway point of Derek’s home. The Hale house. Which now stocks energy gels that taste like medicines for the under-5s.

Two weeks pass and the track gets easier.

*

Two weeks pass and it gets more and more difficult to find excuses not to be there when Stiles enters the yard. Derek suspects he doesn’t know how he looks, which is happier, which is ridiculously hot after a few semesters away. Derek actually went to a specialist running store for the gels, and had to pretend like he knew what he was talking about for a horrific five minutes.

“So you look like an offroad guy,” the salesman had lead with, and Derek wasn’t sure if he was being hit on or sold to. He made sure to get the web address so he could order online next time. It wasn’t that he was socially awkward, he was just consistently awkward in social situations. That included with Stiles. Especially when he was alone with Stiles.

Life, honestly, is just simpler when his pack is fighting off evil attacks and he’s barking orders and growling (either as human or as wolf).

He timed it wrong. He’s taking out the trash as Stiles jogs up, no longer with legs like jelly, panting a little but not taking great bellyfuls of air. His face is shining with sweat, and also something like victory. Whatever it is, it turns Stiles’ face rosy. It makes Derek’s heart twist, and it’s embarrassing.

“I’ll get a gel. We’ve got, um, orange left, I think.”

“Blech!” Stiles says cheerily. “Hello to you too. Actually, I just got an invite to Scott’s for Friday dinner. It’s the only time I see you, and I wanted to say thanks for the energy things. Helps me get down the hill.”

Curiously, his face is still rosy.

“You could just roll,” Derek points out.

“Mm, love that feeling of getting thorns in my face. My very face, Derek.”

“I heard you the first time.”

“It’s a cute face. It deserves to be protected,” Stiles shoots back, and trots up to the porch to snag a gel from the package perched by the door. “Besides, Melissa said if I was coming, she was making alfredo. I hope you’re not lactose intolerant.”

“I’m not,” Derek confirms, feeling like a horrible pervert because he saw Stiles’ ass when he bent down to get a gel, and God help him, he didn’t look away.

There is a pause as Stiles sucks down the gel. As Derek doesn’t look away. A pause where something might happen, but doesn’t.

And Stiles throws the empty tube in the trash, and says he’ll see him on Friday.

*

And Friday comes around and Derek is once-again dressed in his best pair of jeans and the third-best shirt he owns. He rotates the shirts, first-to-third best, then a t-shirt as a wildcard. To stop Melissa thinking he only has one shirt.

It’s nice, in a really simple way. Food’s healing. Melissa’s asking about his work, she tells him nurse stories that are crazy, gross and both at the same time, sometimes. She understands he needs someone to be maternal, he understands that when Scott’s away at college she feels like she’s rattling around the house without him.

Scott’s been pretty good about sticking around for Friday night dinner since he’s been back, though from what he suspects he’s been spending the rest of his time with Allison. Young love. He keeps an eye on the Argents, but Allison seems to be the rare kind of apple that falls a long way from the tree.

Tonight, though, Stiles will be filling in on Scott duty. Melissa answers the door and tells him she has her ‘backup sons’ here tonight, and the sad thing is that it’s true. Well, there are worse things than being Melissa McCall’s backup son.

Stiles is enthusiastically stirring a white sauce, and there’s a splash of it on his sweater. Derek listens to his body, expecting it to tense, but it relaxes here. Hey. He likes both these people. He’s gonna eat a square meal that he didn’t cook himself (this morning, he set an egg on fire). He brought Melissa a bunch of flowers, the same way he does every Friday, because he lives in the freaking woods and wildflowers are everywhere. It’s gonna be good.

*

Derek is sexy. It’s a thought that hits Stiles between the eyes as Derek takes his second bite of the pasta, and the sauce smears just on the corner of his lip. It’s full of cream—Stiles should know, he helped make it even as Melissa tried to get him to set the table instead—and garlic, and fragrance, and it’s there on Derek’s LIP and aaargh.

This is worse than swimmer guy. Swimmer guy did not know he existed. Swimmer guy was always chill and happy and Stiles found that more approachable than the raw angry-hotness of Derek, but now Derek is doing chill and relaxed and it’s unbearable.

“Stiles?” asks Melissa, breaking through his concentration. “You’re not eating. Was it the last story I told? It was a little graphic, I guess…”

“Nah, Stiles isn’t scared of blood,” Derek says with a grin. “Not with the amount he’s been fainting on his runs.”

“You’re running?” Melissa asks him, with interest.

“I have not been fainting!” Stiles protests, unable for some reason to catch Derek’s eye. “I’m actually doing pretty well—“

“Derek’s joking, I know,” Melissa interrupts. “It’s what he’s like, Stiles, you know that by now?”

Stiles does not know that by now. Derek has been dark and gloomy and knows too much and the occasional glimpses of dork—the time Stiles called in a panic because his Dad wasn’t answering his phone and Derek rang back thirty minutes later to say that a telephone pole had fallen over and he’d lost his charger—the energy gels—learning that he jokes with Melissa—are getting to be too much.

They talk a little more, about running and cardio and Derek doesn’t realise he has a swatch of sauce painting his lip for ten minutes, and it’s ten minutes of torture.

Stiles is acutely aware that, should there be any mind-readers nearby, all they will hear is the inside of his brain going ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah’ for, like, an embarrassingly long time. Occasional variations in pitch and that is it. Sorry, mind-readers. But you shouldn’t be doing that without permission anyway, it’s very rude.

But the meal is good. It’s delicious. Derek washes up, which appears to be all the payment he can offer for being fed and all that Melissa will take. He licked the sauce off before too long, and there was dessert of pecan-caramel ice cream. Stiles feels stuffed and happy when he wanders outside.

Derek is behind him. There’s a caught breath (scented with garlic) between the two of them, and Stiles thinks about blurting ‘WHY DID YOU NOT REVEAL YOUR CRAZY HOTNESS EARLIER’, but decides against it.

Instead, he says, “I’m going for a run.”

Before Derek can open his mouth to say ‘what the hell’, Stiles has propelled himself into the darkness. It’s one of the worst ideas he’s ever felt. Ice cream crashes against chicken in his stomach, a stitch starts somewhere in his right side, and he kind of wants to puke.

Allison and Scott show up out of the darkness, holding hands; Allison instantly abandons her boyfriend because Stiles is moaning in pain, and they walk him home slowly, and Derek has disappeared.

*

Derek is burning coffee the next morning when Stiles, like the titular gorillas in the mist, emerges from the Beacon Hills daily fog. His hair is frizzing, he looks chilly and pale—though what else is new—but he also looks determined.

He was expecting a new pack of energy gels to come later today, but not before 7.30. And Stiles has seen him looking through the window, so he marches up to the door and it opens. Because Derek, full of puzzlement, of course wants to know what’s going on.

What’s going on is that Stiles jumps up and kisses him, once, and goes a deep pink once more.

“I don’t want you thinking I only run up here for the energy gels!” he warns Derek, before he steps inside the Hale house, leaving thoughts of swimmer boy on the front porch.

Because why did Derek even think he’d started running in the woods in the first place?


End file.
